Online CRM & Sales Enablement Made Simple

You just want to track customers—what they've purchased and what you need to do next, right? TrackVia is the perfect solution, allowing you to build an online CRM and sales enablement application to streamline processes and workflow.

Streamline Sales Processes

Design and build your own custom online CRM or sales enablement software with the features you need... and none of the ones you don't. Mobile-enabled, easy-to-build and a fraction of the cost of traditional CRM solutions, you'll only wish you discovered TrackVia sooner.

1

Fast and Easy

Building your own online CRM application takes only minutes. Upload an existing spreadsheet, build your application from scratch or use one of our pre-built CRM templates. TrackVia is drag-and-drop easy. No coding required.

2

Powerful Real-Time Reports

Easily generate real-time reports on just about anything related to your customers and sales using pie charts, bar graphs, interactive Google Maps and more. Share live data with colleagues, and create centralized dashboards showing all of your online CRM data in one place (no more disparate spreadsheets!).

3

Mobile Optimized

Designed with mobile users in mind, TrackVia is optimized to work on iOS and Android devices. Access all of your online CRM data from anywhere, as well as create custom forms to make data entry easy.

Online CRM Use Case

After unprecedented company growth, spreadsheets and email just weren't cutting it for 1-888-JUNK-VAN. They needed a custom online CRM and found the solution in TrackVia.

Online CRM and Sales Enablement Resources

TrackVia Case Study: Fortune 500 Retailer

Background

This Fortune 500 retailer, together with its subsidiaries, operates over 1,000 retail stores in North America, selling a range of bedroom, bathroom, and other home furnishings.

Several years ago, the company’s management team realized that it needed to take a different approach with the top 10% of its customers. Developing proactive, direct selling relationships with these “Platinum Customers” offered a large growth opportunity. The company could offer these customers better service and special promotions and the result would be a larger, steadier volume of purchases from this customer base.

The Platinum Sales Group assumed responsibility for acquiring and managing these customers. It started off managing account data using Microsoft Access, but quickly ran into the following challenges:

• Microsoft Access required support from IT for modification and maintenance–however, IT resources were unavailable to the Platinum Sales team due to assignment to other projects

• The group had difficulty tracking data and responding to customer inquiries due to corrupt data and technical knowledge required to search for data in Access

• Understanding customer purchase history was difficult given the complexity in getting Access to report down to the SKU level by customer, date, and location

• Email contents had to manually be added to Access in order to keep a history of customer interactions

These challenges prompted Tim Georgens, Platinum Sales Manager, to search for a solution that would be simple to deploy and maintain, inexpensive to own, and easy for a team to share regardless of where they are located.

Fortune 500 Retailer’s Solution

Georgens knew he had to move away from Access to a more powerful, but easy-to-use tool that his team could maintain without support from IT. His knowledge of CRM packages like Salesforce told him that these offerings were “too pricey” for what he wanted to do. He started investigating online databases and came across TrackVia. After a brief trial period, Georgens was sold on TrackVia’s power, simplicity, and price.

“Serving an existing Platinum Customer is completely different than serving a customer that walks in the door. We need a complete and accurate order history so that we can recommend the right products, at the right price, at the right time. Data management is a critical piece to providing this level of customer service. With TrackVia our problems are solved–plus, we were able to set it up in less than a day!” — Tim Georgens, Platinum Sales Manager, Fortune 500 Retailer

With TrackVia, Georgens’ team was able to accomplish the following:

• Set up the relational database and import the data within one day–without help from IT or external consultants

• Input each purchase for each account down to the SKU level, and quickly and accurately run an Internet-style search when customers call with ad-hoc questions or requests

• Easily create views and reports that allow service representatives to determine, by account, when specific products are needed by location. This capability allows each representative to call their accounts to proactively prepare them for their next buying cycle and prevent out-of-stock situations

• Quickly create powerful business reports that allow management to assess the revenue and profitability of the direct-to-business operation

With TrackVia, Georgen’s sales team is now able to provide exceptional service to the company’s best customers.

Benefits Implementing TrackVia to manage Platinum Customer accounts has yielded tremendous benefits for this Fortune 500 Retailer. Sales have grown rapidly–nearly 100% per year over the last three years–and TrackVia has been a big part of that success since it enables proactive sales and service to those accounts.

Using TrackVia, Tim Georgens’ team has been able to run and grow a burgeoning business that requires a new approach to managing customers, one that the Fortune 500 Retailer is unaccustomed to using. Georgens states, “We’d be lost without TrackVia–using another tool would make it more difficult to run business.” TrackVia also allows the Platinum Sales team to generate regular reports for management that allows them to garner additional support and investment for this growing business.

“We’d be lost without TrackVia–using another tool would make it more difficult to run business.” — Tim Georgens, Platinum Sales Manager, Fortune 500 Retailer

About Fortune 500 Retailer

This F500 Retailer sells a range of bedroom, bathroom, and other home furnishings through 1,000+ retail stores across North America.

TrackVia Case Study: Junior Achievement

Background

The Junior Achievement North Alberta Charter manages programs throughout Northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories. Each JA program has an extensive number of records to be updated and maintained including students, volunteers, donors, budgets and more.

When Javier Salazar, High School Programs Manager joined JA North Alberta, they were using Excel to manage two separate databases with over 600 records each. The amount of time spent maintaining, sorting, and adding data was becoming an ever-growing problem for the charter and the lack of remote accessibility was a major hindrance. Records were emailed between users multiple times, leaving room for error and security breaches. JA needed a solution that would allow for live updates, flexibility, and a user interface that users could learn quickly.

Salazar began by looking at off-the-shelf options designed specifically for managing volunteers and non-profits. According to Salazar, “We looked at a lot of options; none of them had the flexibility we needed.” After ruling out off-the-shelf choices, Salazar began testing custom online databases. Many were not user friendly or they required too much time to get the database up and running. Others did not provide a powerful back end or security features that the organization felt comfortable with, considering the sensitive nature of their data, such as student information. Says Salazar, “There were a few databases that were strong, but they would cover 60% of what we needed, and the rest was not feasible.”

It soon became clear that JA North Alberta had a need for a robust solution that could address all of the organization’s complexities:

• A large number of records, with no standard formats for data entry

• Numerous field types for each program, including student and volunteer information, school addresses, donor information, student company growth and tracking, fundraising, and more

• Limited time to implement a new system and train users

• Users with limited experience in application development or online databases

• Highly confidential records and strict Canadian privacy laws

Junior Achievement North Alberta’s Solution

Collaboration and increased efficiency Immediately after implementing TrackVia, Junior Achievement North Alberta began to see the benefits. “Processes that used to take 30 minutes now only take three,” says Salazar of the changes he’s seen with TrackVia. “I was surprised by how much everyone could do after only a day, especially considering no one had any prior experience with this type of system.” As a result of the time saved by using TrackVia for an array of business processes, JA North Alberta is now able to spend more time building relationships with its stakeholders, teachers and volunteers.

“Other solutions were not user friendly at all, they required extensive prior training in databases or you needed to read intensive manuals and instructions. It took too much time to even understand the interfaces, let alone set up an application. We now get phone calls from other charters asking ‘How are you doing it?’ They know we have a new system, and are amazed by our results.” — Javier Salazar, High School Programs Manager, Junior Achievement North Alberta

Immediate results and long-term benefits

JA North Alberta now uses TrackVia to manage almost every aspect of their organization and its programs. Teachers use TrackVia’s Web forms to request programs for their schools, and volunteers enter their information using TrackVia’s Web forms as well. Teacher, student, volunteer and donor records are all managed within TrackVia including where volunteers stand in the screening process, any student or teacher comments, company employment history, previous programs, etc.

JA North Alberta is also able to effectively match volunteers with teachers’ program requests using a network of Web forms and linked tables within TrackVia. Another application is used to manage information about schools, including how many Junior Achievement programs they have participated in, how many students have been reached, and what volunteers have been matched. TrackVia is also used as a CRM database for donors.

Attendance to JA North Alberta events is managed within TrackVia. Guests request and purchase tickets with TrackVia’s Web forms, and registration is then logged for later review and comparison.

World-class customer support JA North Alberta has worked with TrackVia’s support team many times since implementation. According to Salazar, “There was a lot I wanted to do, and support offered help on how to build the best, most efficient application.” Salazar has seen noticeable growth in functionality in only a year of using TrackVia. “The growth that we’ve seen within TrackVia is amazing, every single thing we’ve wanted added to functionality has been done.”

“Every time I’ve dealt with TrackVia’s support it has been a very good experience. It is actually enjoyable calling; they explain things in language a business person can understand. I’ve never thought of support in such a positive way working with other companies.” — Javier Salazar, High School Programs Manager, Junior Achievement North Alberta

About Junior Achievement North Alberta

Junior Achievement is an international nonprofit organization, spanning 122 countries, that brings together business leaders, educators, parents and the community to prepare youth for the future.

JA North Alberta’s mission is to inspire and educate young Canadians to experience free enterprise, understand business and economics and develop entrepreneurial and leadership skills. JA North Alberta organizes an array of business education programs for all ages across northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories in Canada.

TrackVia Case Study: Gannett Healthcare Group

Background

In order to scale and support the rapidly growing Gannett Healthcare Group division within the $7B Gannett Co., management recognized the need to focus on both its core and non-core business processes and systems. Several areas of the business were burdened with ad-hoc, oftentimes manual and inconsistent approaches that needed to be optimized.

Customer support Call center agents dispersed across the country were tracking calls through a manually intensive, inconsistent process. This fostered a lack of accountability among the team and led to challenges with issue resolution. It also limited management’s ability to proactively implement procedures that could minimize recurring problems.

Print queues Salespeople across the country submitted email requests for printed collateral, posters, flyers and other go-to-market materials for key events in the field. The print request process was entirely managed through email and Excel spreadsheets, which limited the team’s ability to verify and prioritize orders, check on production status, and verify delivery dates.

Marketing document management The team lacked a centralized repository for all draft and final collateral, and had limited version control and change history details that could be applied to documents.

Ken Ramirez, Gannett Healthcare Group’s EVP of Global Operations for Gannett Education, looked to identify a flexible, low-cost online database and application platform that could be easily configured to meet the varying needs of the team and be deployed very quickly.

Ramirez considered, but ultimately passed on, extending several CRM and project management tools that were already deployed internally. He cited end-user complexity, programming inflexibility, Internet access limitations, licensing fees and burdensome implementation as reasons for dismissing these legacy solutions. Instead, Ramirez opted for a cloud-based database platform from TrackVia. Within a single day, he was able to configure, test, and deploy a fully customized customer support system for Gannett Healthcare Group.

Gannett Healthcare Group’s Solution

Ease of use and speed of deploymentGannett Healthcare Group was able to deploy a fully customized customer support solution into production in a day. “TrackVia has incorporated a lot of forward thinking into its product. They have developed a very simple user interface on top of a feature-rich relational database that can be securely accessed and shared over the Web,” said Ramirez. Many of his team members, who have no formal database experience, can easily query critical data and build custom real-time reports through TrackVia’s intuitive interface.

“I’ve looked extensively for a cloud-based application platform that combines a simple interface, a powerful and flexible relational back end, and TrackVia cannot be matched. We started using TrackVia for virtually everything that used to be managed on stand-alone spreadsheets, and I’m sure the use cases will only continue to expand. We continue to find more processes and solutions that can be optimized through it.” — Ken Ramirez, EVP Global Operations, Gannett Education, Gannett Healthcare Group

Visibility and accountability

Gannet Healthcare Group uses TrackVia’s data analysis and productivity tools to produce reports, statistics, and graphical charts giving the team invaluable, real-time insight into key business processes. With a few clicks, management can see both summary and drill-down details of activities such as the disposition of inbound and outbound customer service calls. Ramirez notes, “TrackVia provides real-time visibility into key performance metrics, which instills accountability and gives us critical insight on where we need to improve.”

Data security Several security features prominently distinguished themselves from Ramirez’s perspective. “TrackVia’s granular user access controls let us determine permissions down to the field level. Detailed history gives us the ability to see every change made to every record–date stamped and tagged to the user who made the change. These features are very, very powerful.”

Flexible deployment across the business TrackVia was originally brought in to provide an online ticket tracking system for customer support. Quickly, the team found TrackVia’s flexibility and ease-of-use would enable its deployment across the organization, including:

• Ticket tracking tool for the customer support call center • Print queue management to coordinate requests across the country • Marketing document management to hold all draft and finalized collateral • Seminar tracking to manage key logistics for field events across the country

“I was amazed with TrackVia’s ability to combine ease of use, platform flexibility, and powerful features. I built a fully customized customer support solution in less than one day and rolled it into production the following day!” — Ken Ramirez, EVP Global Operations, Gannett Education, Gannett Healthcare Group

About Gannett Healthcare Group

Gannett Healthcare Group, a division of Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI), is a nursing and healthcare communications company, and the largest print and electronic publisher of news and information for registered nurses and physical therapists.

Gannett Co. is a leading international news and information company that publishes daily newspapers in the U.S. and U.K., including USA TODAY, owns 23 television stations and hundreds of leading websites.

White paper: The expansive benefits of DIY business applications

Introduction

Consumerization of IT is one of the fastest rising, and potentially most powerful, trends affecting the business world today. One of the most prominent aspects of that trend, the citizen developer movement, is showing no sign of slowing. In fact, a recent Gartner study estimated that by 2014, citizen developers will be responsible for creating at least 25 percent of all business applications. The reasons for this trend are numerous. At the most basic level, do-it-yourself business applications are gaining popularity because they empower workers while ensuring maximum efficiency and saving time and money.

Custom applications for custom needs

Different organizations have drastically different needs when it comes to applications, including platforms for customer relationship management (CRM), business intelligence (BI) and project management (PM). In spite of the exponential variables differing companies, departments and employees, traditional pre-packaged, IT-backed business software merely provides a static, one-size-fits-all solution. In many cases, the result of such a solution is that the organization is forced to adapt its processes to meet the particular functionality of whatever software it purchased, rather than creating applications that are molded to meet the specific industry and day-to-day requirements of the given company.

Today, many businesses recognize that this is a very backward approach to business application software. After all, it is the software that is supposed to be a tool to help the organization, not the other way around. If two organizations have drastically different structures, exist in different industries and have totally different objectives, it is extremely unlikely a given application will be best for both of them. A nonprofit that wants to improve communication between employees and members and a small business looking to find new customers may both benefit from a CRM system, but any application that is ideal for one of those objectives will almost certainly not be simultaneously optimized for the other.

A Gartner study estimated that by 2014, citizen developers will be responsible for creating at least 25 percent of all business applications.

Custom CRM can enhance employee integration

This observation, that one-size-fits-all software doesn’t help individual businesses address their unique needs, is true within any given organization. While a particular project management application may be perfect for the sales team, it may not address the needs of the customer support staff. As a result, if the business has pursued a broad, IT-backed software solution, at least one set of employees will often be left frustrated by the sub-optimal application it is forced to use.

Incompatibility is a major contributing factor to business application failures. Despite the benefits they provide, many of these programs, when implemented, fail to yield a positive return on investment, or, even worse, can actually have a negative impact on a firm’s profits, customer satisfaction or other key measures. A 2009 Forrester Research report found that among participating businesses that had deployed CRM systems, the failure rate was 47 percent.

Instead of forcing a solution on its employees, a company can entrust and empower workers to make the best decisions to improve their job performance.

This means nearly half of those firms that attempted to leverage CRM programs to improve their operations were successful. There is no single, definitive answer as to why so many businesses struggle when it comes to effectively deploying business applications, but employee inability or refusal to utilize the system is definitely a significant contributing factor. If workers are not made to see the value in a CRM or other business application, or these programs are too difficult to learn or integrate into existing workflow, employees will resist incorporating such applications into their daily routines. As a result, the system will go unused, and the company will see no benefits from implementing the application.

Because DIY applications are customized to accommodate individual users, the benefits of the program become more readily apparent, increasing the likelihood that employees will embrace the system. Further, DIY applications are inherently built to enhance and accommodate an individual’s existing workflow, making it a solution rather than another complication to incorporate into a daily routine. The goal of creating an application that makes work easier, rather than more complicated, speaks directly to the heart of DIY business applications. With a DIY approach, users are empowered to develop applications that specifically apply to their day-today needs. DIY business applications provide the basic platform, and users are able to customize that existing framework to best match their workflow. Instead of forcing a solution on its employees, a company can entrust and empower workers to make the best decisions to improve their job performance.

A custom application system can save time and money

In addition to the usage benefits–easier to use, more relevant programs that better meet employee needs—DIY business applications can yield powerful financial and time-saving advantages for organizations.

This cost and time savings are due to the simple fact that firms are able to purchase a single, basic solution package, which they can customize to meet the particular needs of the individual workers and departments within the organization, rather than buying disparate solutions for each situation, worker, department and so on.

Even greater than the cost benefits, however, are the time savings. Using a single software can significantly simplify the installation and implementation process. The IT department, rather than having to master a smorgasbord of different programs, will instead be responsible for a single system. The end users themselves can handle the bulk of the customization, limiting IT’s necessary involvement. This is a major benefit. Typically, IT departments must dedicate a significant portion of their time and energy to guiding users through the uses of various business applications. What’s more, the fact that these cookie-cutter applications aren’t good fits for the individual workers means usage issues and conflicts are more likely to arise.

With DIY applications, users will likely have fewer problems, as the tools they use will be designed to meet their personal specifications and needs. This frees the IT department to devote more of its time to bigger, more significant projects that can yield greater benefits for the organization as a whole.

DIY business apps provide the basic platform, and users are able to customize the existing framework to best match their workflow.

Many business leaders see dependence on the IT department as a major drain on company resources. DIY applications are a powerful way to sever this dependence, leading to a more efficient company and a more effective workforce.

Greater independence from the IT department can yield enormous time benefits for an organization. Rather than waiting for IT to install and update a business application, DIY platforms encourage and enable users to handle such issues by themselves. This means workers will not need to passively wait around while IT finds time in its schedule to assist them, nor will they be forced to use an outdated version of a business application while waiting for an upgrade. And because all of the applications will be based on a single system, the learning curve will be less steep. This means employees can master their CRM, BI, PM and other tools much more quickly than when using a diverse range of systems.

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TrackVia is a do-it-yourself workflow software platform for business users. TrackVia gives users the power to build custom work management applications with no programming required, and at a fraction of the cost of heavier enterprise solutions.